On the following morning, Barbara began her attempt to decipher the painters� language. She sat in the long grass next to the shed. She held a stethoscope against the timber wall and listened to their conversation. They were sitting on a bench in the shed. Charles was eating an apple.

�It doesn�t matter whether or not Suzi Quatro went to boarding school,� Vincent said. �It�s completely irrelevant.�

Charles took a bite out of the apple

�I don�t see how that matters either,� Vincent said. �You don�t even have to say that type of thing on your passport.�

Charles bit the apple.

�Well maybe you do have to say that type of thing. But Suzi would never have been that close to the Afghan border.�

Charles bit the apple.

�No, but...�

Charles bit the apple.

�Maybe so, but it wouldn�t have been any different if Suzi Quatro had gone to boarding school.�

Charles bit the apple.

�I didn�t know you could play the piano?� Vincent said.

Barbara took notes of everything she saw and heard, and slowly pieced together the key to their language.

That evening, she sat in the living room and looked at them through binoculars as they played chess in the shed. Vincent moved a pawn. Charles moved a pawn. Vincent took out a cigarette lighter and lit it briefly, then put it away. Charles moved a knight.

As Barbara observed the painters from the window, Roy sat at the table looking at photos. Harry walked in and asked him what he was looking at.

�I got the wedding photos back,� he said. �She was a beautiful bride.� He handed a photo to Harry. It was completely black.

�Yeah,� Harry said. �You�re not starting to regret walking out on Nancy, are you?�

�We had some good times. Why throw all that away just because she�s a few years older than me?�

�It�s a bit more than a few, and leaving the age thing aside, you can�t live the rest of your life under the stairs.�

�I�d be perfectly happy living under the stairs.�

�That�s your problem; you�re not interested in doing things, in seeing other places. You�ve got to experience more of the world. Do you know anything about what�s going on out there, about current affairs?�

�Why worry about what�s going on at the other side of the world? I�ve just walked out on my wife because she�s older than me. That�s all I should be worrying about. Is that reason enough to walk out on a perfectly good marriage?�

�You have to walk out. You can�t live under the stairs. It�s just not practical.�

�Squirrels live in confined spaces for months.�

�What are you going to do, gather up enough nuts for a few months? And live under the stairs with Nancy, feeding on your nuts� Oh God no, I don�t want to even think about that. Think squirrels� squirrels� squirrels� cute, playful little squirrels, playing in the lush grass, chasing their tails; running, jumping��

The phone rang. Harry got up and answered it. �Hello.�

�Hello, this is Mayor Pony. Is this Mr. Edwards I�m speaking to?�

Harry needed to think quickly. �I�m a squirrel,� he said.

�Right. Is your name Harry Edwards?�

�I�m afraid I�m a squirrel. I don�t have any legs, if that�s what you�re asking.�

�Okay, do you have an address?�

�No, I�m a squirrel. I�ve been extinct in this country since the famine. I�m sorry; I have to go now. My family are being eaten by a lion in the lush grass. He�s chasing their tails. Bye.� Harry put the phone down and returned to the table. �Look Roy, there�s just no way you can make this marriage work. You can�t live under the stairs for the rest of your life, and you�re bound to have problems in a marriage to a woman that old. Don�t forget, she deceived you. She never told you her real age when you first met.�

�You�re right. I have to leave her. It�s for the best.�

Mayor Pony didn�t try to call Harry back. He has other problems to occupy his mind at the moment. He was giving an interview on the radio last week and he said, �I was walking down the street one evening, with the evening sun at my back, and I saw the shadow of the Falkland islands coming up behind me, so I walked quicker and got home as quickly as I could.�

�Were you afraid?� the presenter asked.

�No, I just didn�t want to get stuck in a conversation about the war. There was a repeat of �The Cosby Show� on TV, and I could have been there all night if we started talking about the war. And to be honest, I didn�t really know much about the war, so I was afraid I�d say the wrong thing. I could have got into a lot of trouble if I�d said the wrong thing. So I suppose I was afraid from that point of view.�

�Are you sure it really was the Falklands? Are you familiar with the shape of the islands?�

�Not really, no.�

�So how did you know it was them?�

�I don�t know� Maybe it was the smell� No, wait, that�s definitely the wrong thing to say. I was very drunk at the time, if that�s any consolation.�

There�s still no response from the Falklands, but the opposition are making a big deal out of this.

After three days of observation and note taking, Barbara believed she had learnt enough of the painter�s language to be able to translate the latest offer into a form they�d understand. It was much more complex than she had initially thought. When she had previously met Vincent and Charles, about four years earlier, their conversation had centred almost exclusively on Suzi Quatro, but the range of their vocabulary had grown significantly since then. And things like the tone of their voices, their gestures, the way they ate, or the things they threw at the door were just as important in understanding what they were trying to communicate.

As she sat at the living room table going through her notes, Harry arrived with Martin. Harry�s latest plan to end Roy�s marriage was to get Martin to talk to Nancy and tell her that Roy has decided he wants to spend the rest of his life with her after all, and then Martin will casually mention that Roy has just got a new job as a DJ on a breakfast show. Martin did his impression of the way Roy supposedly talks now. �Welcome to another fab, fab, fun-ulous Friday, with me, craaaaaaazy Roy. I�m mad!�

�Any woman would be repulsed by that,� Barbara said.

Barbara completed her translation of the situation regarding the painter�s jobs, and on the following morning, as Vincent and Charles were working on a mural depicting a day out in the country with Suzi Quatro, she walked into the shed holding a briefcase. They stopped working and made their way to the table, where Barbara was standing. �Vincent, Charles, nice to see ye again,� she said.

She put the briefcase on the table, opened it, and took out an orange. She started peeling the orange. A rough translation of this peeling would be: Due to economic circumstances beyond our control, we�ve been forced to make some cutbacks. We�ve done everything possible to ensure there will be no job losses. However, in order to save your jobs, we�ve been forced to cut your wages by 15% and to stop overtime for the foreseeable future. We deeply regret having to take this measure, but rest assured, everyone in the company will be making sacrifices in order to build a successful future.

When Barbara stopped peeling, Vincent and Charles looked at each other. Charles nodded. Vincent turned to Barbara and said, �Yeah, that seems fair enough.�

�Okay,� Barbara said. She started peeling the orange again: I will need both of ye to sign new contracts.

Vincent agreed to this and Barbara took the contracts out of the briefcase. Charles nudged Vincent, and then coughed.

�Oh yeah, one other thing,� Vincent said. �When is Suzi Quatro coming?�

Barbara tried to explain the situation as diplomatically as she could, but when the painters realised that Suzi Quatro wasn�t coming to visit them, they went on strike.

Harry and Barbara looked out of the window at another protest outside the shed. This time Vincent and Charles joined the other protesters. They were holding placards that just said �Suzi Quatro�, whereas the others held placards with slogans like �Fair Pay�.

As Harry and Barbara looked out the window, they heard the sound of Martin falling out from under the stairs. When he came into the living room, he headed straight for the door of the shop and said, �I�ll be off now. Goodbye.�

Martin looked dishevelled, and Harry noticed lipstick on his face. �Wait a second,� he said. �Is that lipstick?�

Roy had been watching TV. He stood up.

Martin was on the verge of tears. �I swear to God, Roy, nothing happened.�

�What have you been doing with my wife?�

�Oh God, it was her. As soon as I got in there she was all over me. I was terrified. There was nothing I could do; she was much more used to the dark than I was. I swear, Roy, there was nothing I could do.�

�How could she do this to me?� Roy said.

�In fairness, Roy,� Harry said, �you did walk out on her.�

Martin looked as if he needed something to forget the whole experience. �Can I go now?� he said.

�Of course, Martin,� Harry said. �I�m very sorry about what happened.�

The accountant negotiated with the relatives again and they reached a new deal in which their wages would only be cut by 5%. That still left the Suzi Quatro issue. The relatives would stop protesting but the painters were still demanding to see Suzi. A solution to this problem had been forming in Barbara�s mind for a few days but she was reluctant to carry it out. However, something had to be done about the problem and there was no other way around it.

On the following morning, Vincent and Charles were putting the finishing touches to the mural of Suzi Quatro in the country. Barbara walked in. She was dressed in black leather and wearing a brown wig, and looked almost exactly like the image of Suzi Quatro in the murals. The painters stood up, with a look of shock on their faces.

�Suzi Quatro!� Vincent said.

�Hello boys.�

�Suzi... Quatro. Suzi Quatro,� Vincent said. Charles was unable to say anything. He spent the whole duration of Suzi�s visit staring at her with his mouth open. Vincent went over to the table and found a pen and paper. �Suzi Quatro?� he said as he handed them to Barbara. She signed the name �Suzi Quatro� and handed the pen and paper back to Vincent.

�Suzi. Suzi Quatro.�

�You�re welcome.�

Suzi Quatro�s visit only lasted about ten minutes, but it was a successful one. For the next few months, Vincent and Charles created murals to record every detail of that visit, from the moment they saw her at the door to the moment she waved goodbye. Harry had been worried that Vincent and Charles would realise that Barbara was not the real Suzi, but Barbara pointed out that they wouldn�t have seen her since the seventies. Their memory of Suzi is hazy, as can be seen from the murals. Barbara just tried to look like the Suzi in the murals and the painters never suspected a thing.

The problem of Nancy and Roy�s marriage still had to be sorted, and Barbara had an idea there too. She thought that Suzi Quatro should have a go at talking to her. �Nancy would surely consider Suzi neutral enough,� Barbara said. �And Suzi�s on a bit of a roll now too.�

Barbara went under the stairs to talk to Nancy while Harry and Roy waited outside, continuing the tradition of staring at the floorboards. They both remembered something they had read in John R�s autobiography about how he had stared at a nail in one of those very floorboards for three days without blinking after he drank a six-year-old bottle of milk in 1931.

When Barbara finally emerged from under the stairs, over two hours after she had gone in, she was holding a cocktail glass and was looking back, talking to someone. �Nice meeting you all. I�m not sure if Charles Dickens is still alive, but if he is, I�ll pass on your message.�

Harry and Roy could hear Nancy�s voice from under the stairs, �Thanks for everything, Miss Quatro. Goodbye.�

�Bye,� Barbara said as she closed the door behind her.

�Well? How did it go?� Roy said.

�You�re off the hook. It turns out you were never really married in the first place. The man who you thought was a priest � the one who married you and Nancy � he wasn�t really a priest. Nancy referred to him as �Father� because he really is her father.�

�Her father?� Harry said. �How old is he?�

�I don�t know, but he went to school with Karl Marx. He says he wasn�t so much of a leftie back then. Also, she was never really pregnant. You can�t always take what they say literally. They�ve developed their own dialect over the years under stairs. It�s difficult to figure out exactly what they mean in the darkness, when you can�t see their facial expressions or gestures. You have to listen very carefully to their intonations. You always have to be aware of the mood they�re trying to project. For instance, when she told you she was pregnant, the fact that she was laughing at the time meant she was actually trying to suggest that she wasn�t pregnant. Also, by saying �and pigs fly� immediately after she told you she was pregnant would indicate that what she�s trying to express is the opposite of what she actually says. It�s these subtle things you have to look out for. Nancy is actually engaged to someone else, although her fiancé went out to get cigarettes in 1942 and he hasn�t come back yet.�

�How many of them are in there?� Harry asked.

�I don�t know. I was introduced to twenty of the immediate family, and there were a lot of cousins I didn�t have time to meet.�

�Where do you think they came from originally?�

�It�s difficult to tell. The dialect is mostly based on English, but there�s also an influence of German and telephone sales. When they offer you a drink they say, �Guten Abend, would you be interested in this unique opportunity with regard to availing of a dry Martini?��